30 Pieces Of Silver

Sun 03/10/13

There’s so much of the Easter story what was foretold hundreds of years before Jesus was ever born. The prophet Jeremiah said,” They took 30 pieces of silver. The price of the one priced by sons of Israel, and they purchased the potter’s field.”

But when you read in Matthew 27, it talks about how Judas betrayed Jesus. When they tied Jesus up and paraded him to Pilate, Judas realized what he had done. He was overcome with guilt and remorse, he tried to gave back the 30 silver coins to the high priests saying, "I’ve sinned, I’ve betrayed an innocent man.” They wouldn’t take it. So Judas threw the 30 silver pieces into the Temple and left to take his own life. (30 pieces of silver was comparable to four month’s wages for a skilled laborer at the time)

The high priests picked up the silver, but didn’t really know what to do with it. One said “It wouldn’t be right to give this – a payment for murder, as an offering in the Temple.”

So they got rid of the silver by purchasing a potter’s field as a place to bury the homeless- just like Jeremiah said 600-700 years before Jesus was born.